X Factor winner Matt Cardle has spoken about why he had to check himself into rehab.

The ‘When We Collide’ singer checked himself into the upscale rehabilitation centre at The Priory for dependency on temazepam and Valium in December.

Posting a handwritten message to fans on New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2013) via Twitter, he wrote: “I want to thank my fans for all your lovely messages of support… I’m getting myself better… I want to be ready to give it 110 per cent on tour next year. I love you all and will see you the other side.”

Speaking about his time in the facility, which has also seen famous patients including Pete Doherty, Cardle told The Sun On Sunday: “The doctor said to me if I’d been left to my own devices for another three or four weeks I might not be here now. To be told it is life or death, I was like, ‘Hold on a minute, how have I come to this? How has it got this bad?’.”

On the severity of his addictions, he added: “I didn’t have my wits about me to even count how many I’d taken. It was a lethal situation. Towards the end I was so out of it I was asking people around me how many pills they’d seen me eat.

“I had already pushed it too hard and I passed out on a train – spilling beer all over myself. I started getting changed on the train and got half-naked. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. All my sense of what was good and bad and right and wrong had gone out of the window.”

Matt Cardle won The X Factor in 2010. He scored a Number One in the Official UK Singles Chart with ‘When We Collide’, a cover of Biffy Clyro‘s ‘Many Of Horror’. In October 2013 he put out his third studio album, ‘Porcelain’, which was released independently. It followed 2011’s ‘Letters’ and 2012’s ‘The Fire’. He is set to begin touring the new album in April of this year.

This Week's Magazine

Connect With Us

NME Newsletter

Your email address:

By submitting your details, you will also receive emails from Time Inc. UK, publisher of NME and other iconic brands about its goods and services, and those of its carefully selected third parties. Please tick here if you’d prefer not to hear about:

Time Inc.'s goods & services, including all the latest news, great deals and offers